Henry Waxman: “I was the author of the legislation originally to provide the breast and cervical cancer screening. That was during the…”

“I was the author of the legislation originally to provide the breast and cervical cancer screening. That was during the Bush-Quayle administration. We had their support for that legislation, but we could not get them to agree to help fund the treatment for women if they found that they had cancer. It is now 8 years later and in a bipartisan and maybe unanimous move we are finally going to allow low- and moderate-income women who are screened for breast and cervical cancer under the existing program to have assured treatment under this legislation. This bill would provide them the hope by allowing States to cover them under Medicaid to get the care that they need. It makes sense. It is in fact a cruel hoax to say to a woman, 'Go get screened but if it turns out you have cancer, if you don't have insurance, you're on your own.' Unfortunately, in these last 8 years, the number of people who are uninsured has grown 1 million each year.”